The Bear
by yellowillusions
Summary: Just a little story, from Karma's POV, about her own confession of love to Amy and the emotions that come with such a confession. Have a go and I hope you enjoy.
1. Practice

Taking a deep breath and a sip of my herbal tea, I made myself sit down in an effort to become calm. Pacing up and down by the side of my bed certainly wasn't helping and it was evident I was feeling incredibly anxious, hence the large mug of tea I held between my hands, courtesy of my parents.

"Let's go then" I uttered and put the tea on my bedside table. "There are a lot of things that I have to say".

There were a lot of things I had to say and to say that it could fill the pages of a standard-sized novel was no exaggeration. It was in my nature to ramble, to say the most irrelevant things just so I could fill the silences but today, I had to break out of that. Where to start? Perhaps, in explaining to Amy how I felt, I should start at the beginning for there is no better place after all.

"We've known each other for most of our lives haven't we? Such a long time. We've had such a amazing time together" I took another sip of my tea and turned back around. "We even got through that time when we pretended to be lesbians to get popular. Do you remember that? Of course you do. Who wouldn't? It was an incredibly stupid idea. Of course you remember" And there I began rambling again. It was a terrible habit that I couldn't get myself out of.

"Okay Karma, you can do it".

Could I really? Already I felt the tea rising up in my chest as with every word I spoke, I felt as if I was about to be sick. I was nervous beyond belief, my hands fumbling about in my lap. My face felt hot and I had the sudden complexion of a beetroot. How could I possibly carry on?

"It's when you realised how you felt about me at the time and how you felt about girls. Not exclusively. You still don't fully understand yourself and that's okay. That's not always necessary. I'm confused too". It was quickly becoming instinctive to reach out for my cup of tea but the merest suggestion of it brought me close to becoming ill. Still, there was silence and I decided I should carry on.

"Perhaps I'm not confused after all and soon you'll understand. I guess. You see, that night you told me that you loved me and then I told you I didn't feel the same way. Yeah, you remember that. I wasn't being entirely truthful. I was lying, to you and to myself. I was just afraid as you but not half as brave as you were to lay your heart before me. I'm a strong believer in the idea that if you don't say something it isn't true. Well, that's what I told myself. If I didn't admit that I've always had feelings for you, in some shape or form, then they weren't there and I could get rid of them. That's how I felt my whole life. I've realised though by watching you fall out of love with me and falling for somebody else that it wasn't that simple. My feelings existed and there was nothing I could do about it. I've loved you for so long, it was always there but so latent that I could focus on my stupid idea of forcing myself to love other boys for no reason other than their appearance. In these two years, I've learnt a lot. I'm not so obnoxious and I understand what I want now. Perhaps it's too late now and maybe you think I didn't need to tell you but I do. Before I go mad".

Silence. Only silence. I expected that.

"And now I know how you felt all that time ago. I just wish I was brave enough before. I'm an idiot. I shouldn't have said anything. There was no point".

And what really was the point? With the speech I had recited, did I really expect Amy to run into my arms? It was my trouble – I always wanted what I couldn't have and always when it was too late. She wouldn't run into my arms, I'm sure of it. Amy was over me now, I knew that. She had found herself girlfriend after girlfriend and she was in the midst of rather a barren spell. Amy still remained my best friend but for her, that was how far it could go. She didn't tell me so but the beauty of being best friends was the ability to know what the other is thinking and feeling with no words being said. What would I expect? I had left it for too long now and I couldn't expect to be the one to put the pieces of her heart together when I was the one who broke it.

"So, that is all I have to say".

I looked up from the paper I had placed in front of me and looked up to the bear that sat in front of me. Gaia was it's name, given to it by my Mother. It was wonderfully crafted, with the most beautiful grey eyes and sweet smile, almost as if God had crafted it. Perhaps that was why I had chosen it as a double for Amy. She too was if God had crafted her to be the most perfect of all humanity but her beauty went beyond her eyes and her smile. It was the smile she brought to my face with every glance I took, the comfort I felt when we fall asleep together and wake up in each other's arms. It was the happiness she gave to me when I was sad, when she'd brush the tears away lightly with her thumb and tell me jokes and stories until I smiled again. There was more beauty in her than in anything else and this bear was just a poor stand-in. I needed something to remind me of her, just so I could practice my speech and learn it off by heart. The bear, when Amy wasn't around, was my source of comfort although it was doing the most terrible job of comforting me now. The smell of the tea in the air, the incredible anxiousness that I felt made me feel that I couldn't be comforted by anything until I finally saw Amy.

"Karma! Karma!" My Mother called. "Amy is here!" Amy always let herself upstairs so I waited patiently for her in my room. I placed Gaia to my side and put the piece of paper in my right hand, before folding it and putting it in my pocket. I watched how the door handle turned slowly and with each turn my heart-rate quickened.

"Karma!" Amy exclaimed as she threw herself down on the bed. "Now, what are we watching? The Use of Slavery in the West or the documentary about Cambodian children? I've got frosting".

Maybe later I'll tell her.


	2. Confession

The only light in the bedroom was from the television, playing out one of the documentaries that Amy insisted on watching. I was always interested in them as Amy loved them so dearly but I couldn't give it any attention, even when I tried to for my ear laid elsewhere. It was clutched close to Amy's chest where the only sound I cared about was the beating of her heart. Over and over, the same rhythm. It was a comforting rhythm and was my favourite sound when Amy's voice was taken from the equation. It was a sound that I had got used to on these Friday documentary nights where we almost always fell into each other's arms. I always found an excuse to rest my head on her chest, just so I could hear her heart and to be as close as possible to her.

At that moment in time, my mind was as far as possible from telling her. I was thinking about it constantly but all the courage that had been built up was quickly crushed by her enthusiasm for the documentaries she was desperate to watch and I couldn't deny her them could I? Perhaps I was just looking for excuses, any shred of a reason as to why I couldn't tell her. I still remembered the speech and I still had the paper in my pocket, if ever I needed it. There was just something holding my tongue.

"Karma, Karma?" Amy tapped my shoulder and I mumbled a quiet 'yes' against her chest. "We don't have to watch it if you don't want to. Let's watch something you want to. I'll even watch Judi Dench if you really want to".

"I couldn't ever do that to you. I know how much you hate her". Amy just laughed to herself and I nestled back into the warmth of her chest. Amy's fingers became entwined in my hair and gently ran along the full length, from root to tip. There was no way that I could tell her now, I had managed to convince myself. No matter how much we had denied it before, Amy's confession of love had caused our friendship to take a battering. It changed the dynamics of it quite drastically before, rather naturally, everything got back to how it used to be. It would be selfish of me to test our friendship again just for my own gratification and the slight, small chance that my feelings might be reciprocated. No, I decided. I would be silent, perhaps for the first time in my life. "Are you okay Karma?"

"Me, okay? Of course I am. I've never felt better. Why, should there be something wrong?"

"No, I was just asking. You are really quiet, it's weird. Usually I can never get you to shut up. There must be something wrong".

"Not necessarily. Sometimes I just have nothing to say".

"You having nothing to say? Pigs will fly next" Amy joked and I just scoffed at her but nothing was to turn her away from the notion that there was something wrong with me. "Is it because of a boy? We've been over this a million times. You don't have to feel weird about it. You know I don't feel that way about you anymore".

"You don't?"

"Yeah. It's been a long time, you've had Liam, I've had Reagan, we've moved on haven't we?" I couldn't bring myself to say anything to her. With those words _'we've moved on'_, well, it felt like a sharp knife had been plunged deep into my stomach. I knew she had moved on, it was evident, but to hear it was another thing altogether. Without her saying she had moved on, I could at least imagine that deep in her mind, like my own, there were some feelings left. Even if it was a small amount, at least it was there. Maybe Amy was kidding herself and was trying to make me believe that she had moved on. Then I remembered, I also had the tendency to kid myself into believing the stupidest of things. "Well, I've moved on".

"I know and that's great" I mumbled. Amy moved away from me and reached over for the remote control to pause the documentary. I began to get quite worried now; Amy never paused her documentaries, not for anybody. Her commitment to documentaries about various developing countries was astounding to say the least.

"So, what is wrong my dear?"

"My dear?"

"It sounded good and anyway, you are evading the question. I know what you're doing. Is it your parents? Is their truck being closed down? Are the plants dying again?"

"No and we can't mention that. They can't have the cops after them again, especially after last time" Amy nodded and she said nothing more about that.

"So, it's not your parents. What is it then? I'm quite worried about you now". In the brief moment that I had managed to look up at Amy, I could tell that typical to her style, she wasn't about to let it go until she found out. There was no use in lying, Amy knew me too well to spot the signs of any untruths I was telling her. Sometimes I cursed that she knew me so well. There was no hiding from her because of it. I could feel her eyes burning into me whilst she waited for me to say something but what could I say? This was the perfect break in what we were doing to do what I had planned for so long but now, when it came to telling her, I was remarkably silent. My head knew all the words but I couldn't just get my mouth to form them. The piece of paper was still in my pocket if I ever needed it; I realised though that with all the rehearsing I could do, no amount of preparation could be enough for the real thing. Life is better unrehearsed, my parents told me once. Sometimes I would like to see the future just before I live it though because diving head first into things, like I was about to, with no view of what was to happen was terrifying.

"I suppose I should tell you. You won't let it go will you?"

"No. You know me too well Karma". I pulled the necklace from around the back of my neck and let the half-heart charm fall from my hand back to it's natural place. I always did that same ritual when I was nervous and it seemed that Amy knew that too from the slight laugh I heard from her.

"I, er, I want to tell you something. It's quite hard to, to, er, to say but I'll try. I should just say it out loud, just say it" The paper in my pocket became useless, my memory blank and it was from my heart that the words were to come from, not from a pre-prepared speech.

"When you told me that you loved me, I'm sorry to bring it up again, I should say that I wasn't entirely truthful when I said that I didn't love you in the same way. The truth is, I did love you in exactly the same way. In a way, I had always loved you since I first knew you but I've just never recognised it or I've never wanted to acknowledge it" I took a deep breath and picked up the half-heart again. "And I still love you, more than ever. I can't stop thinking about you and I together and how great it would be. It would be perfect because I love nobody like I love you. I can only imagine what that would be like. It's been really hard to see you with other people you know, knowing that I could do something about it or I could have done something about it. See, I tried not to ramble but here I am doing it. I keep telling myself, to convince myself that I shouldn't say anything to you, that you don't feel the same way but you might. The way we are together, the way we are still so close. There must be something there". I had managed to surprise myself with the calmness with which I spoke and the confidence in my words. I felt proud of myself and expected Amy to say something, something that I had wanted to hear.

Instead there was the silence I had imagined before. The only thing that I had planned that had happened but it went on for much longer than I thought. Amy had me perfectly poised between heaven and hell and I was waiting to fall into either one of them. Which would I be entering though? That was what I was to find out, when Amy finally decided to speak.

"I know you said that you don't love me anymore but that's because you wanted me to believe that right? So we could go back to normal. You do feel the same way still don't you?" I looked up from my lap and found that Amy too had been staring at her hands like I had been doing, only when I looked up, she didn't follow. Her hands became more erratic and fumbled about aimlessly. Maybe she was overcome with emotions. Maybe she couldn't believe what I had said and was just finding the right words to say to me. I was starting to imagine them now. 'I love you too' she'd say, 'I'm so glad we can finally be together'. This was the point I hadn't prepared for though. What was I supposed to do now? This was when I imagined us falling into bed together or falling into each others arms at least. There was just a delay, of course. "Well, don't you?"

"Karma" Amy uttered, just under her breath. She looked up at me briefly, down to her hands and then back at me. "I don't feel the same way. Not anymore. It's too late. I got tired of waiting and wondering. You're too confusing Karma. Always wanting things when it is too late. It's too late now. I don't know what you expect me to say when I've waited for so long. What will I do when you decide that you want something or somebody else? No, Karma. It's too late".


End file.
